As always, clicking on the "Read More" link will give plot elements away from this week's 24.

Once again, 24 shows us that no matter large a crisis we might face, people at CTU will still whine, complain, bring up petty personal grievances, instead of helping find the terrorist/bomb/nerve gas, etc.

It took Rick Schroeder, of all people, to come in and lay down the law. He had kind of a thankless job on NYPD Blue, replacing the beloved Bobby Simone. Here, he's replacing Curtis, who was popular, but not "Edgar Stiles popular."

Too bad they didn't pick Mike Doyle (the Schroeder character) to talk to Martha Logan. The move he pulled on Morris would have been just as effective with the ex-first lady as getting Charles Logan to talk to her. Man, that was a bad plan, and not just because it ended with former President Logan getting a knife stuck in his chest. No matter how friendly Martha Logan is with the Russian first couple, wouldn't it be easier just to have the actual president call up Moscow and tell them the problem? That element of tonight's episode wasn't handled well, and I wish they could have found a better way to bring back Martha Logan and Aaron Pierce.

Too bad we didn't see more of Jack, whose part in the story made for the most tense moments of the episode. And how cool was it when he made a -- what was it, a lasso -- out of the belt? After a VERY painful looking tumble down the steps, no less.

Also, "6 p.m.-7 p.m." marks the season's halfway point, which means the plot should radically shift sometime soon, unless the writers can find a suspenseful way to keep those drones flying around for 11 hours.